UPDATE 1-AUTOSHOW-Alfa Romeo could build cars in Mexico for U.S.

(Combines previous stories, adds quotes, details)

By Gilles Castonguay

GENEVA, March 4 (Reuters) - Italy's Fiat SpA (FIA.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) is considering Mexico as a base to build its Alfa Romeo sports cars for export to the United States, a huge market where it plans to return sometime after 2008.

Fiat has been thinking about building the cars somewhere in North America to avoid the cost of exporting them from Italy, given the euro's strength against the dollar.

"It could be Mexico," Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne told Reuters Tuesday at the Geneva auto show when asked whether that country could be a likely location for a plant.

Fiat should decide later this year what to do, he added.

The head of Alfa Romeo, Luca De Meo, told Reuters in an interview that he and his team have yet to decide on what models to sell in the United States.

Details including the kind of distribution network to use should be disclosed in the coming months, he said.

Although Marchionne had previously set 2009 as the year to enter the United States, De Meo declined to confirm it.